


Hellebore

by enmity



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-10-28 07:48:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20775062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enmity/pseuds/enmity
Summary: It's not his place to mind.





	Hellebore

The war had taken something from all of them.

Eirika stays, in the end, stays for her brother and her duty and her country, all things thankless and important. The years claim her slowly, mercilessly, and she keeps reaching towards the space between her and Ephraim, stretching more and more even when she’s right there beside him. Identical hair and eyes and noble colors, the king and his better half, and she walks out of his room a little less herself, each and every time.

The wall building between them isn’t quite solid yet, but she can feel it, counting the seconds of pause before Ephraim acknowledges her voice, turns that old smile towards her as though they were still children yet to learn the mistakes of adults. And Eirika gives him that, swallows his placating lie, lets him pretend, and herself too.

She gives and gives and gives, because she’s never known anything else, and when Seth stays, it isn’t for her.

He’s never known anything else, either.

.

Lyon is dead. Ephraim is halfway gone, and Eirika stays, she always stays, for her duty and her country and for the fear that the next time she turns her back on him, he’ll look back at her the stranger she’s scared of him becoming.

The palace garden is pristine. It had been ransacked years ago, during the invasion, but the princess had loved the flowers so, and in the aftermath of the war it was Seth that had paid attention to have it restored when she neglected to do so.

He knows this place well. In the crannies of his memory he recalls perfectly every one of her hiding places, and she was just a little girl then, hardly four and soft around the edges. Malleable, with a brittle core, and it was that part of her he’d loved too, fallen for before he could find the words for what he felt.

But she’d left that girl behind, in the garden where they first met.

.

It’s snowing. The sky is pallid, shot through with streaks of white and gray, and the garden is barren, frost coating the branches of trees and ice rapidly claiming what’s left of the unwilted green.

Eirika’s clothes are heavy, and yet Seth feels the urge to lead her inside anyway, warnings of the cold and illness already forming in his mind. He bites it, though.

“Seth,” she calls, just as he’s about to turn himself away, and it stops him dead in his tracks.

“Your Highness.” Their mouths pulled in identical lines, “Pardon me. I didn’t mean to intrude--”

“It’s alright.”

Her smile crinkles, looking ready to fold, and he can’t quite suppress wondering if she would have let her brother see that expression. A foolish line of thought to follow, so instead he thinks: _is it really? _

“I was just watching the snow. My brother isn’t much for mourning, so I’m doing it in his stead.”

“I see,” Seth says plainly, and when she turns those eyes towards him like that, he can’t be sure if it’s him she’s looking at, or one of her ghosts.

The dried-up petal crumbles between his thumb and forefinger, and it's not his place to mind either way.


End file.
